The Funny Reason Hugh Grant Has Given Up Rom-Coms For Good

Once upon a time, Hugh Grant was the face of the romantic comedy genre. However, in more recent years, that's shifted — and no, it's no coincidence. According to the actor himself, he no longer fits the bill, physically, to play the leading man in a rom-com, and he's accepted that with good humor. 

In the '90s and right through the aughts, Grant personified the rom-com genre. After all, this is a man who was part of "Notting Hill," the holiday classic "Love Actually," the "Bridget Jones" series, and countless other romantic comedies. And on top of being the star of the genre, he's also said he loves the lightness it brings viewers. As he pointed out in an appearance on "Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen" (via Vanity Fair), "Everyone gets prizes for being deep and dark and serious — but actually it's quite difficult to do light and entertaining and charming." 

It may have come as a surprise to many, then, that in more recent years, Grant has taken on a number of darker projects, with films like "Cloud Atlas" and "The Gentlemen" and TV miniseries like "The Undoing," co-starring Nicole Kidman, and "A Very English Scandal." However, for Grant himself, it's not that much of a shock. As he quipped in an interview with his former rom-com co-star Drew Barrymore, he doesn't think his current look is especially conducive to a romantic role. 

Hugh Grant has long been known for making fun of himself. As such, it wasn't at all out of character when, during an appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," he did just that while explaining why many of his newer roles have been outside what he was once best known for. "I got too old and fat and ugly to do romantic comedies, obviously," he mused (via ET). It wasn't the first time the "Bridget Jones" alum has cracked jokes about his appearance as he's gotten older. Four years before his interview with Barrymore, Grant expressed the same sentiment, almost word for word, in a roundtable featuring other actors for The Hollywood Reporter.  

For what it's worth, in his interview with Barrymore, his former co-star disagreed with his assessment that his looks disqualified him from playing the archetypal romantic lead. She even said she'd love to do another rom-com with him — and something tells us he wouldn't rule that out. As Grant boasted elsewhere in the "Drew Barrymore Show" interview, "I love to hate the films I've been in, and I do hate some of them, but 'Music and Lyrics,' it's impossible to hate. We're so good in it, and so charming!" 

Here's hoping that means he hasn't completely written off the idea of a return to the rom-com!

Inasmuch as Hugh Grant has laughed off not being in rom-coms anymore, he's also said he genuinely enjoys playing seedier characters — not because it's a stretch, though. Au contraire, he's joked on a number of occasions that he believes he's more aligned with the bad guy. In the roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, Grant stated that anyone who believed he was as charming as some of his past characters was mistaken. "I'm vile. Really," he said. 

Similarly, in an interview with GQ, he admitted enjoying his villainous roles in "Cloud Atlas" because he could relate to them on a primal level. "I've got this horrible feeling, now I'm 57, that we are evil and that our veneer of civilization and niceness is very, very thin. So when you're allowed to be your true, evil self, it just smells right, feels right, is fun to play," he mused playfully. 

It's worth noting that Grant opting for darker characters over romantic ones certainly hasn't harmed his own love life. In 2020, he quipped on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" that his wife, Anna Eberstein, has a particular penchant for darker content and welcomed the shift. "She's never liked those films I did in the past, which were all romance. But now, she's starting to get a taste for them," he said with a smile. Well, Grant may not be doing rom-coms anymore, but it kind of sounds like he's in one in real life.